3. Raptors: Getting Hedo Turkoglu to sign on the dotted line when it looked he was Portland-bound turns Toronto's offseason from good to great. Picking up Antoine Wright in the surrendering of Shawn Marion was a shrewd move, as was getting the newly-extended Andrea Bargnani's good pal Marco Belinelli for cash and Devean George. DeMar DeRozan should be a homerun, too. Nice work, Bryan Colangelo.

Anyway the biggest impact is on us imo. Who's gonna add more wins to their records from last season because of the moves they've made this offseason. I'd say us, obviously because we were so bad last season but still. The fact is we should add 10-15 more wins to our record this season due to the moves we've made, can anyone else say that?

LA gets preference because they are the champs. I wouldn't call losing Ariza for Artest a great move (unless Ron can finally learn to be a teammate), but they had one main target, Odom, whom they got after lots of drama and suspense. They didn't really need to do much. But they're the champs, so the experts are on their dicks.

LA gets preference because they are the champs. I wouldn't call losing Ariza for Artest a great move (unless Ron can finally learn to be a teammate), but they had one main target, Odom, whom they got after lots of drama and suspense. They didn't really need to do much. But they're the champs, so the experts are on their dicks.

Funny, Orlando went to the finals and added VC, Barnes,Bass,Anderson and re-signed Gortat and they're 7th?

I can't believe all the various ratings for the off-season. I would say that the pre-season record is more meaningful. I think we all pretty much think that a team like Detroit sucked in their acquisitions, but it is entirely possible that they do surprisingly well and surpass expectations. There is just way too much emphasis put on how things look on paper.

Even with the Raptors, aside from them being clearly stronger over last season, there is still the challenge of getting the most out of each guy in the rotation. This game is still played by human beings and not robots or video game avatars, so I just can't get into this winning the off-season thing, to the level that it gets emphasized in these dry times for article subject matter. I really wish some of these guys with the know-how could try to get inside the heads of some of the coaches that are faced with making the most out of the acquisitions when it comes time to playing for real.

I love this site, and the people on it, but sometimes it gets SO ANNOYING when anything the least bit critical about the Raptors is dismissed.

The Raptors had a good offseason, but not great. Not better than the lakers, not better than the magic, not even better than the spurs. We got Hedo who has been a 3rd option or less his entire career, and a bunch of YOUNG UNPROVEN players.

The Lakers got RON ARTEST, prob the best defensive player in the league, and a borderline all-start PLUS re signing Lamar Odom.

Spurs added players, and the Magic got a WHOLE lot better.

Think about it this way... if the Raptors would have got VC, Barnes, Bass etc.. we would be screaming that we have the best offseason.

Funny, Orlando went to the finals and added VC, Barnes,Bass,Anderson and re-signed Gortat and they're 7th?

They gave up a lot of depth for VC, and overspent for Gortat to play 10MPG, when he publicly came out and asked them to not match the offer. The Barnes and Bass signings were good, I can't ague those. But they went from a team that had a legit chance of coming back to the finals to being a question mark. The talent is there, it's true, but when you have the chemistry of a Finals run, why fuck that all up? That's what Mejia is saying, and I agree.

It's not like Orlando just came off a 33-win season and made major moves while keeping its core intact, like we did. They gave up Hedo without even a thought of resigning him after he carried them to the Finals. They are building the team to win now, but IMO they would've been better off resigning Hedo, keeping Lee, Battie, and Rafer, and adding Bass/Barnes while letting Gortat and all that money go to Dallas.

"Having quality big men is an absolute must in our league, and Marcin has worked very hard to fit into that category," Magic general manager Otis Smith said in a statement. "He provides tremendous depth to our frontcourt and we're happy to bring him back."

Gortat's agent, Guy Zucker, said the center "was definitely very disappointed today." He said Gortat was back in his native Poland, where he'd already been telling everyone he was headed to the Mavericks.

Gortat was hoping to play alongside Jason Kidd and Dirk Nowitzki and, most of all, compete with Erick Dampier for the starting job. Dampier is going into the final year of his contract.

In Orlando, Gortat will likely see spotty playing time behind Howard.

"It was definitely about the opportunity to find out how good he can really be," Zucker said. "We had requested that Orlando not match the offer. We stated the fact that he sincerely wanted the chance to carve his own path, be his own man, so to speak, which is not going to be realistically possible in Orlando."

I was wrong, he didn't publicly state that he wanted to go to the Mavs. But they asked Orlando not to match, which he made public after they did the opposite of what he asked. That, paired with Hedo's lukewarm departure, would not make the Magic too appealing if I was an NBA player.

I was wrong, he didn't publicly state that he wanted to go to the Mavs. But they asked Orlando not to match, which he made public after they did the opposite of what he asked. That, paired with Hedo's lukewarm departure, would not make the Magic too appealing if I was an NBA player.

I don't give a shit what Tony Majia thinks. He used to work for CBSsports.com and he wrote countless articles over the years on the Raptors that were inaccurate and borderline ignorant at times. Here he gives the Raptors some props but in doing so he again shows how he does not take the time to do his homework by totally forgetting the Raptors' second biggest move, the signing of Jarret Jack. He also forgot about Evans, a guy who fills a BIG hole on the Raptors.

90% of the bloggers out there doing this stuff for free are better than Tony Majia.

Let me get this straight, adding Ron Artest and losing Trevor Ariza means the Lakers had the second best off-season? Come on man...I fail to see how that's better than Turkoglu, Jack, Wright, DeRozan, Evans and Belinelli. For that matter about about Shaq, Parker and Moon? Or Carter, Bass and Barnes? Majia is slurping the Lakers again? Surprise, surprise...Basically he gave the Lakers props for retaining Odom, Kobe and Phil Jackson. Yeah, like Kobe is going to bolt on like $25M for one year and on the potential for back to back championships WITHOUT Shaq. Its a team's job to keep important talents.

i agree apollo, there are at least 10 guys i blog with on the cbs site that write better copy that Tony! I don't think the lakers signing Artest will work out, but losing ariza will come back to haunt them.

Bang Bang Bang, Skeet Skeet Skeet, She do that
thing for 3 retweets...

Blunted Member

Join Date: Nov 2008

Location: Here

Posts: 984

Representing:

Quote:

Originally Posted by takman_777

i agree apollo, there are at least 10 guys i blog with on the cbs site that write better copy that Tony! I don't think the lakers signing Artest will work out, but losing ariza will come back to haunt them.